It knocked the breath out of me. Fury coursed in my veins. Who the hell? Was it that stupid Harvey kid?
I jumped to my feet and spun to face him.
There was nobody there.
Another blow to my back, and I fell again. I would have suspected Trevor, but when I turned my head, the kid had not moved from his place on the floor. “What is that?” I managed, unable to keep my voice from sounding pinched.
Trevor was still crying and did not answer me.
“What is that?” I said again.
“I’ve tried to warn you a few times, like I warned Henry, but you would never let me talk to you,” he finally said.
“That’s because you’re weird and I didn’t want to hear anything that you had to say.”
His face was grim. “This is one of the forbidden rooms. It’s one of their rooms.”
“Who?”
“The orphans.”
“The who?”
“This was one of their rooms. It was also my nursery when I was a baby. They took a liking to me, they liked having me here. They let me visit. But only me. Anyone else comes in here...”
I waited, impatient. “Anyone else what?”
“They get angry. When other people invade their space.”
“I don’t see any stupid orphans.”
An unseen hand slapped me across my face and I cried out.
“Don’t insult them. It’s bad enough you came in here uninvited. It’s bad enough they saw you picking on me. You shouldn’t insult them too.”
I scrambled to my feet. “This isn’t making sense.” I backed toward the door, throwing anxious glances in all directions but seeing no one else, and nothing to account for the slap and the shoves. “This is some kind of trick. You’re doing this somehow.”
“There’s something else you should know,” he continued. “It’s also the room where he did it.”
“Who did what?”
“My grand-father. Where he killed them. Every single one of them.”
I turned and fled the room. I had heard enough. Trevor’s voice followed me out into the hall, still thick with the sound of his sorrow.
“I’m sorry Seth,” he said. “You can’t run from them.”
4
All night, they tormented me. I told myself it was still some trick, that Trevor was doing it somehow. But as the twilight hours crept along, and as the noises in my room refused to subside, I found myself almost believing the stupid runt’s tale of dead orphans and murder.
I kept hearing the pitter patter of little feet, but now they were in my room with me.
I lost count of how many times I was awoken to the sound of children playing near the foot of my bed. I would sit up, rub at my eyes, and find no one there. I would lay back down, refusing to believe, but the moment I started to drift off back to sleep they started up again. Once, I thought I saw a young boy with a long face and hauntingly dark eyes staring at me from one corner of the room. His entire countenance exuded disdain and scorn.
It was torture, and by the time the sun’s first tentative rays pierced my window and cast their glow in a little patch on the floor, I was exhausted, terrified, and completely frazzled.
But something else happened as the daylight flooded the room; my terror fled, and that familiar anger took its place. It was easy, as the cold night gave way, to forget how sure I had been all night that there were ghosts in my room. It was so simple, when the fright passed, to pretend it had never been there at all. It’s amazing when you think of it, how quick we are to disregard things we know to be true when it suits us, to try force the world to into the mold we have set for it.
I knew, in the daylight, that whatever I had experienced the night before was nothing more than an elaborate trick. There was no such thing as the supernatural. Ghosts weren’t real. Spirits did not rattle chains and haunt old houses. There were no little devils trying to steal souls, no God in heaven who gave a rat about me. All fantasy. All of it. The world was a rational, physical, completely natural place, and anything to suggest otherwise was just silly old superstition.
Like I said, it’s amazing how we try so hard to make ourselves believe in the rational and explainable. Perhaps that is an even greater superstition than any other; the superstition of the naturalistic.
I didn’t want to know what I looked like as I rose from my bed and got dressed, but I chanced a look in the mirror anyway. My eyes hung heavy, the lids seemed thicker than before, my face was pinched and sallow, and all in all I looked like crap. I wet my hair and fixed it in place as best I could and headed for the bedroom door. Breakfast time in the great dining hall, and I meant to have a nice little chat with Esau and Trevor about some things.
Something shoved me hard from behind again, and I sprawled across the floor. My knee struck the side of the bedframe, pain erupted up my leg, and I yelped.
And of course, I was still utterly alone.
Another trick. Had to be. I massaged the aching limb and joined the others down below, the last to arrive.
Henry looked at me with the most curious expression. Esau cocked an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth curled upward. Trevor gave a startled little gasp, as if he were surprised to find me alive at all.
“You’re… here,” he said.
“Imagine that,” I said. Esau was seated at the head of the table, Henry to his left, Trevor to his right. I plopped down in a seat beside Henry.
“How are you feeling this morning, Seth?” Esau said, looking at me pointedly. “You do not look well.”
“Of course I don’t look well,” I replied. “Missing an entire night of sleep will do that to a person.”
“Having a hard time adjusting?”
“I could give a crap about adjusting. Your son is my problem.”
“Oh?” His gaze trailed over to Trevor, whose complexion turned deathly white. Or more deathly white than usual, as it was. Henry’s mouth flopped open. Esau regarded his son for a moment longer, and then fixed his eyes on me once more. “Is Trevor bothering you?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Trevor cried.
“Hush, now,” his father scolded. “Well, Seth?”
“Well, let’s see.” I ticked off items on my fingers. “First I catch him holding some crazy ritual in the woods. Then he’s dancing in a dark room at midnight. Then he’s trying to convince me that there’s these dead orphans that want revenge on me. So yes. He’s bothering me.”
Trevor choked on his orange juice, and looked about as mortified as anyone could look. For a drawn out moment, even Esau was unable to hide his surprise and displeasure, but he remembered himself quickly enough and a cold steely expression settled over his face, effectively masking his bewilderment.
“Not these orphans again!” he bellowed. “How many times, Trevor? How many times?”
“Dad--”
“How many times do I have to tell you to cut that nonsense out!”
“But--”
“And what is this ritual in the woods? What is he talking about?”
“A game! I--”
“You are to never go into that nursery again! Do you hear me?”
“But they’ll be sad--”
“Who’ll be sad, Trevor, who?”
The boy caught himself. I was sure he was about to say that the orphans would be the ones to miss him, but he couldn’t very well say that to Esau, could he? I watched him, a perverted satisfaction in my gut as Trevor cringed and tried to shrink in his seat. Henry just bore this stupid little expression on his face, as he looked back and forth from one to the other, almost more embarrassed than Trevor for having to witness this. I half expected him to excuse himself any moment, but he was as rooted to the spot as I was.
“Who’ll be sad, Trevor?” Esau repeated.
“Don’t you hear them Dad? In the night? Ever?”
“Hear who?”
Trevor was reluctant to say any more. Esau’s face did not give away much of a sympathetic vibe. I’m sure the boy was hoping that his fathe
r would admit to having heard something.
“I’ve heard them,” Henry said, and both Drurys’ heads snapped around at him. Now it was his turn to cringe, and my turn to look around stupidly. I would never in a million years have expected him to interrupt such a heated exchange between father and son.
“Come again, now?” Esau said, his teeth bared.
“I’ve heard them. Footsteps. Running up and down the hall at night.”
I felt that familiar chill from the previous night at the mention of those footsteps, and the memories that it recalled. I brushed it aside. Ghosts. Are. Not. Real.
“So my son has been trying to scare you with his tales as well, has he?” Esau shook his head, then looked again at his son. “I’ve had enough of this. I’ve humored your macabre fascination with that old nursery long enough, and against my better judgment. It is high time I sealed the room shut.”
Trevor’s eyes bulged. “You can’t! They won’t like that!”
Esau laughed. “Imaginary characters do not have feelings, my boy. And maybe in time you will forget this nonsense, if I stand my ground on this.”
“Please, dad!”
“I will have Jacob bar the door and seal it shut this very day. And that is the end of the discussion!”
Something shattered overhead, and the ceiling shook. Something big and heavy, by the sounds of it. We all looked up as one. Even Esau appeared a tad rattled by the timing.
“What the hell?” he muttered.
“They’re mad,” Trevor said.
“Let them be mad, then,” Esau said. “What harm can they do?”
5
It looked like somebody had planted a bomb and detonated the bust of Hamlen Drury, one of Esau’s distant ancestors. Chunks of broken stone